UK water company allowed hackers to lurk undetected for nearly two years, regulator finds

UK water company allowed hackers to lurk undetected for nearly two years, regulator finds
South Staffordshire Water was fined £963,900 by the ICO after the Cl0p group remained inside its network for nearly two years, exposing the personal data of 633,887 customers and employees. The breach began with a malicious email attachment, then escalated through poor monitoring, unpatched systems, and a ZeroLogon vulnerability before being discovered through IT slowdowns. #SouthStaffordshireWater #Cl0p #ZeroLogon #InformationCommissionersOffice

Keypoints

  • The attack started in September 2020 with a malicious email attachment.
  • Cl0p stayed hidden in the network for nearly two years.
  • The company failed to enforce least privilege and used a domain administrator account.
  • Unpatched ZeroLogon systems and weak monitoring helped the attacker move laterally.
  • The ICO fined South Staffordshire Water after customer and employee data was published on the dark web.

Read More: https://therecord.media/uk-water-company-had-hackers-lurking-for-years